By Chika Nwachukwu, Abuja
The Federal Ministry of Education has denied claims that the Minister of Education, Dr. Tunji Alausa, is responsible for the delay in the resumption of newly recruited staff at the Nigerian Education Loan Fund (NELFUND), insisting that there was no approval for any recruitment exercise and that the agency is already overstaffed.
The denial comes in response to a report in a national daily on July 7, in which the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of NELFUND, Akintunde Sawyerr, said the minister had directed the agency to place an embargo on employment after it recruited dozens of staff in January 2025.
Sawyerr said the affected employees were recruited in good faith to support the Fund’s academic and skills acquisition mandate, but the minister’s directive had put the process on hold.
Credible sources at the ministry however told our correspondent on Tuesday that the report was “not only false but misleading.”
According to the sources, there was no approval from the board of NELFUND for the recruitment, and management had not formally reviewed or discussed any recruitment plans before the exercise was carried out.
The sources said the Executive Management team had earlier met with the Chairman of the Fund, Mr. Jim Ovia, in Lagos, where the chairman halted the ongoing recruitment proceedings and declared them unnecessary at the time.
The sources further disclosed that the chairman had instructed that those already recruited through the process should not be added to the organisation’s payroll and also ordered a comprehensive review of staff ranks to ensure transparency and compliance with organizational protocols.
The ministry sources described the current staffing situation at NELFUND as “alarming,” saying approximately 80 percent of the workforce is redundant.
“This issue was unanimously acknowledged at our recent management meeting, where all four key leaders agreed urgent action is required to resolve the redundancy crisis. At this stage, we simply cannot afford to increase staffing,” the source said.
The sources added that the intervention by the Minister of Education had been instrumental in averting organisational collapse.
According to report, affected employees who have received letters of engagement since January 14, 2025 and completed documentation by February 3, 2025, have remained in limbo for nearly 18 months.
NELFUND was established under the Student Loans Act to provide interest-free loans to eligible Nigerian students and has since disbursed billions of naira in tuition and upkeep loans since commencing operations in 2024.
